Billion naira contract debts: We are vindicated -Osun PDP

Osun State chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has said that it has been vindicated by the Rauf Aregbesola-led administration for admitting that it had been borrowing money to finance its contracts.Aregbesola's media aide, Semiu Okanlawon, was quoted by a newspaper on Tuesday as admitting that some unnamed investors had been funding the government projects.Okanlawon was quoted as replying the PDP that 'Osun does not have the kind of fund either from the internally generated revenue or federal allocation required to embark on the kind of ambitious projects we are doing in the state, but because of the confidence the (sic) investors and corporate world have in the Aregbesola-led administration, they are ready to engage in business with us on the most convenient payment terms."The PDP, in a statement issued by its Director of Publicity, Prince Diran Odeyemi, on Tuesday, however, challenged the ACN government to name the so-called investors apart from the Infrastructure Bank, which announced last week that it had lent Aregbesola's government N17.8 billion to finance a road project a few days after Aregbesola told Muslim leaders that his government had not borrowed a kobo from anywhere.The PDP stressed that financial records of the Aregbesola government showed it had borrowed over N100 billion even before adding the almost N18 billion from the Infrastructure Bank.Prince Odeyemi, however, cautioned the ACN government to stop attacking persons and explain why its contracts never went through due process, were never advertised for competitive bidding and were the most expensive in the South-West. On Monday, the PDP had said that it was "still investigating why the Ilesa township and Osogbo township road contracts were awarded at the same amount of N3.7 billion each apart from another N17.5 billion for six inter-township roads, all of which were awarded to RATCON Construction Company."We also note in particular the award of "road pot-hole patching" contract to the same construction company at the sum of N1.08billion, which under normal circumstances should be a direct labour job for a subsidiary of the Ministry of Works, the Osun State Road Maintenance Agency (OSROMA).
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